I did a lot of trading on localbitcoins and never had any issues with being robbed at gun point.
However, it turned out that some of the people I was trading with were undercover federal confidential informants who video taped and audio taped our transactions.
Then homeland security used this flimsy evidence to claim that I was "operating a business without a license".
Believe it or not, operating a business without a license is a felony, punishable by up to 5 years in prison and the belief that I
might have been doing that was enough to send 35 or so agents to break into my house, search it from top to bottom and take all my Bitcoins.
So, there is your real threat.
Don't worry about the small time thief, worry about the big time civil asset forfeiture thief.
www.jmwagner.com www.burtw.comthis was done in real life right i mean your trading? if it was done online it would be the same thing happened? i can't explain why it happened to you only, there are plenty of traders that trade in real life using bitcoin without any licence, even here on the forum there is plenty of these guy
Yes all my trading was done face-to-face, cash only (to eliminate charge back scams). Theoretically, online transactions might make you look even
more like a business to them.
The weekend they arrested me they also arrested a few others. The whole thing was called "operation avalanche".
My attorney immediately asked to see the
sealed grand jury testimony that was used in all the indictments. But they refused to give it to us - a post 9/11 patriot act (marshal law) privilege they now think they have.
It cost me a lot of my life savings ($284,373.00) to clear my name and avoid jail and we are in debt now because of this. Because of the high cost of defending a federal felony case most people just take a plea deal to get it over with. I was first offered a "lessor felony", said no, then offered a misdemeanor, said no, finally ended up having to pay them about $80,000 in cash and Bitcoin in order to get them to drop both the criminal case against me and the civil case against all my stuff they seized. This was a "steal" because going to trial on the criminal case was going to cost me up to $100,000 and the civil case another $50,000 to $80,000 and you cannot trust committees of people who are not smart enough to get out of jury duty to do the right thing - in other words I might have lost.
Anyway, because we are not going to trial we never get to see whatever fabrication, lies, half truths, innuendo, or maybe even some actual evidence were used in the grand jury testimony in order to get the indictments against me and all the others.
So, I do not know and will never know exactly why they spent millions on their case against me - but I have my theories and educated guesses.
